Gilded Arteries
by cakelace
Summary: A divine force interrupts Faraji's life in search of a terrifying sword. This piece is about the main character of the The Final Chapter of Rain and Once Upon a Reject from the Zodiac book series, as well as OCs.
1. I

Faraji jerked some boxer briefs up his corded, hickory legs, nudged the cat from his path with his toes. He thought the black puff ball was slapping up his feet six seconds into his walk, but was corrected when he, at last, looked down to admonish his pet and found instead an army of spiders. Already being a wiry thing, he was embarrassed for himself when he barked out a cry. He jolted backward. The dance he did to slap the bugs from his legs was nothing less than pathetic.

 _"Fuck!"_ And the curse, along with his breath, was harsh and had ripped out of him. He was still swatting himself in the dark when the banging on the walls returned. Or was it the door getting punched? He was uncertain, because the noise seemed to surround him, and it was the noise that had dragged him from sleep.

Racing by, the arachnids passed the threshold of his bedroom and continued on somewhere with Heru tip-toeing after them. One loud, impatient knock shook Faraji's apartment. Hell, the whole duplex could have trembled with the impact. Whoever it was, Faraji hoped his landlady was at church and not downstairs enjoying the morning, because the least of his desires was to have her nagging.

He slid his weapon from the wall. It was a curved blade, light in his hand, meant for decoration and some shit like this. His blood was knocking through his body as though he housed a horse. And as he approached the door, hands tight on the handle, sweat beaded at his brow and wet his nape.

 _"What?"_ he snapped out. Something felt off about this. He knew it because he had the sword in his hand, the sweats weren't his usual night sweats, and the spiders had been strange. The air in his apartment had become incredibly thick, which he'd noticed when he woke. The heat wasn't on; he'd worked that out in his head. It was winter, but it was hot here, a heat that didn't bloom from his body alone.

"I said, _what_?"

Nothing. No answer, not even breath outside the door. Faraji pressed his ear to it. The banging ceased. It was too still. He swallowed and swung his gaze to the peephole. There was someone out there, though it was only the shape of them he could determine.

Faraji's face tugged with confusion. He lowered the blade at his side and shifted, brought his other eye to see through the fisheye lens. _What the fuck…?_ he thought. Though outside was still sapphire, there was enough sun - and porch light - to see someone standing just outside the door. But Faraji couldn't see them. The shape was as shadowed as his closet.

"I'm callin' the cops, man, get outta here," he tested. His eye remained trained on the figure. His hand that gripped the sword's handle was clammy; uncomfortable. There remained a stampede in his ribcage. "I said I'm fuckin' callin' the cops!"

Then, as if it were pulled into itself and made to be nothing, the dark entity shivered and was gone.

Faraji remained at the door for what could have been an hour. Outside was citrus with daytime, and people were walking up and down the paths in their coats, and cars were zipping by at illegal speed limits, but Faraji was still looking for who - or what - had been knocking.

"I don't _know_ ," he said to his mother on the phone, the sword still in his hand. His knuckles ached. He was no longer at the door, but he hadn't gone far from it. He still watched. "Look, I told you how it went: someone came here and they didn't look right. Then they just - disappeared. I don't _know_ what they looked like, Ma, that's what I'm saying. No," he answered, impatient. "Yeah, I'm fine. Just a bruise, must've bumped the wall or something."

He shook his head and dropped the blade to the couch. His hand went in his wild, curly hair, sticky and stinky with sweat. His mother was going on and on about his health and other obvious things. He knew she was only concerned for him, but it was untimely. All he could picture was the dark shape pulling off with unnatural celerity. And the spiders, which he hadn't seen, were still disturbing him.

"No, Ma…" He sighed gently. There were some joint pains, but nothing he'd reveal to have her worrying more. "I'm fine. Yes. Love you, too. Alright, bye."

He left the phone on the couch with the blade. Just like the spiders, he hadn't seen his pet, and while it was expected that he wouldn't see the spiders again, Heru wasn't an insect that could creep into walls, but a cat.

"Ru! Come on and eat."

Nothing. Not even when a new can of wet was popped open, the usual bait of felines. Faraji filled the cat bowl with fresh food and water anyway, then went off through the small apartment in search of his pet.

"You've no manners," a man said once Faraji entered his bathroom. Again, with a yelp, he embarrassed himself. He was spinning, since he didn't know what was happening, who the man was, how he got in, why Heru was standing on the sink beside the man as if an ally, and where that accent derived from. "The cat has more manners than you."

"Yo, what the fuck?"

And, walking backward but not doing well with it, Faraji attempted to leave. His back hit a narrow wall that hadn't been there before. When he whipped around to address it, there was no wall, but the man from the bathroom.

"FUCK, what the FUCK!" Faraji barked. His joints were really hurting now. He knew there'd be bruises on his back - it didn't take much - especially when the man's front might as well have been a wall with how hard it was.

"Stop walking," the stranger said. "Stop talking." And he was backing Faraji against a true wall. When Faraji could go nowhere else, the man stopped and crossed his arms and looked him down, then up again.

There was a twist of some emotion in the man's face, though Faraji was too frazzled to determine it. Faraji, himself, was trying to appear ambiguous, since tough was long gone with how they'd met. Still, he wasn't about to appear entirely weak. Afraid, yes, he was, but that was internal. The sword was in the living room, useless.

In this small amount of time, he was sizing the guy up, recording everything about him in his mind: Golden-bronze skin. Neck-breakingly tall, around six-and-a-half feet, if not more. Small, two-toned, russet locs stretching down to the man's waist, adorned with a few feathers. Out of place and as odd as the accent were the man's ice-blue eyes. There was a sharpness and a depth to them that was severe and unnatural, and the man's lips were a nice size, his nose not slender but not large, and he had a squared jaw with a light beard and a strong face and overall handsome but defined features. He was lean, but he was also sort of ripped, not overly done, though. And his arms, from the tops to the backs of his hands, were inked.

A large storm of curse words swarmed in Faraji's skull. He didn't know why he was itemizing the damn details of this fool. In fact, after he'd done it, he felt a slight bit gay, which was the farthest thing for him, and so it pricked him. Still, the presence of the man had both enchanted and disturbed him. He shimmered with foreign energy, with darkness and danger, and Faraji wanted only to wake from the apparent nightmare. Instead… Instead, the stranger looked at Faraji with a sudden, blinking awareness. And Faraji felt so vulnerable then, as if the man had found the sickness in him and was repulsed by it.

"I've had a long trip," the man said. "You'll bathe me and see that I'm fed-"

"I'm not bathing your fuckin' ass, are you stupid?"

"-and when we're done," he continued, eyes narrowing with impatience, "you'll tell me where to find what belongs to me."

 _"What?"_

"Into the shower, Faraji. I like it hot and soapy."

Then he was stripping off his shirt, which looked burnt and was smoking, and the man went into the bathroom without another glance back at Faraji, like he didn't believe the male to be daft enough to disobey him.


	2. II

_"I like it hot and soapy,"_ Faraji was replaying in his thoughts. Go get the sword and put up a fight and be killed, or refuse to "bathe" the fool and still be killed? Or better: just leave the whole damn apartment to him and the cat, since Heru had displayed the signature lacking loyalty of felines. Faraji punched the side of his leg and cursed to himself. He regretted the self-abuse, knowing that, like his back, would bruise. A song of expletives followed that curse when he heard the rifling in the bathroom.

It was a demon. Faraji wouldn't be convinced of anything different from that. The man had been at the door, had brought bugs in with him, and could teleport. Then why did Heru seem to like him? He'd gotten the black cat for protection from evil spirits. So the cat was corrupt, too, then. The cat was an embodiment of superstitions.

"I don't feel you washing me," came the voice of the demon. Then, low and to himself, "Where's the rosewater...?"

 _This bitch,_ Faraji thought. Then he laughed. He laughed and threw himself against the wall and cared nothing for how it would make his body tender tomorrow. "The rosewater," he repeated, still hysterical. A mist of tears was in his eyes. They dried when the demon appeared in the doorway with Heru tucked in one arm, a contradicting look of severity on his face.

Faraji cleared his throat. He supposed there was no getting out of it now. He had some selenite in the windows, all useless, he gathered, since there was this entity in his home that seemed unaffected by all his protective devices. Some scissors were in his medicine cabinet for trimming the hair on his balls, and he thought he might get them and attempt some heroic act to save himself and flee.

Heru meowed. The stupid cat was purring in the arms of the enemy. Faraji scowled at him and took him from the demon, put him on the floor outside the bathroom, and gave a nudge to his butt with his foot to get him going.

"I'm not washin' you," he told him. Still, he reached into the tub and turned the hot water on. He knew without looking behind him that the golden, loc-framed face was pulled into some appearance of satisfaction, and he could feel it, too: the demon's pleasure.

"Get in."

Faraji's head whipped around. The demon was unaffected by it. He was already getting his pants and shoes off. Faraji exhaled hard and slow. He would have to kill this taint and die trying he would, as there was no way he was getting up in another man's crack with a washcloth.

"I only use natural soaps. I saw you didn't have any, so I provided some."

And there on the sink where Heru had been sitting, there was an oddly-shaped crystal bottle full of some lavender, milky substance. _A delicate demon,_ Faraji thought. He felt laughter bubbling up inside him again. This entire day was so fictive. If he survived it, he couldn't wait to tell his mother.

"Okay," Faraji said, nodding, one shattered, helpless laugh escaping the gate of his teeth. "Alright."

"Get in," the demon repeated.

"You get in. I don't need my ass washed, you do."

The demon stared.

"So here ya go…" And Faraji was getting a rag and towel from one of the portable cabinets, stacking them up on the sink opposite the side with the soap. He patted them and nodded at the creature. Then he confidently exited the bathroom…

...And stepped directly into the shower.

He whipped around in the tub, stepping in and out of the shower spray, his confusion and disorientation stripping his voice from his throat. He blinked repeatedly. It was real; he was in the tub, the water was hot and believable enough, and the demon, it was coming, joining him in the small, tiled space.

A tattooed hand extended the bottle of soap. The demon was so tall that he could see well over the shower rod. Faraji felt intimidation slink up his back and into his brain, a warning he wanted to listen to, but couldn't do much about.

He took the soap.

"So you're not an entire fool," it said. "Begin with my hair. Do it carefully."

"Fuck this."

The eyes in the demon's face were bored and transient and gold, flowing from gold to red, and then they were black. Faraji breathed out a great sigh, dumped a hefty amount of the soap into his hand, and began very delicately with the ends of the hair hanging over the demon's left shoulder.

"A demon with locs."

"I'm not a demon."

And that was all he said to Faraji. Faraji was, at least, comforted by the new information. It did seem peculiar that Heru was fond of him. So if not a demon, then what? The man wasn't human - Faraji knew that much - but that wasn't the frightening part. The absence of specifics made Faraji all the more fearful. He just had to get through this unpleasant portion of his day, and then he'd leave the dem- - the "man" - to the apartment to find whatever he'd claimed to be looking for.

Faraji soaped the stranger's locs up the the scalp, and he found his hair to be very soft and curly at the roots. There was curly hair at his nape, as well, and something about that softened Faraji. Before he knew he was doing it, he was washing the stranger's arms, though he was quick about it, not giving him the thorough baths he gave himself. He tried to keep the intimacy out of it, but the male before him was enormous and nude and he had his hands on him. It could only be intimate, and the newness of the situation made Faraji's head spin.

The stranger was watching Faraji's face and not his hands. Faraji was watching his own hands and not the stranger's face. Without the talking, it was awkward. Faraji knew, however, that the awkwardness existed only for him.

The top portion was all washed up, covered in white, scented smears. The bottom…

Faraji's face twisted up when he unhappily looked down at the thick, semi-erect _thing_ hanging there in the water. He was so distraught by it, so secretly impressed, that turned his back to the unnamed male and crossed his arms. "Wash your own dick," he said above the shower spray. "The fuck do you think this is?"

Stillness. The hairs, even as they were pressed down by water, were sticking up on the back of Faraji's neck. He was irritated, inside and out. The shower was making his boxer briefs stick to his skin. It was a feeling he hated worse than wet socks.

It was only protracting the pain of it all to remain idle, so with great disgust, he turned back around to face his headache. The stranger had mirrored Faraji and was now giving his back to him. A back lined with rows and rows of text, the letters small, odd, and similar to what Faraji knew as runes.

He was holding his locs up in one hand. He wasn't doing it perfectly; some had escaped the tatted fist to hang long and dark on his skin. Faraji cleared his throat. He soaped up his hands once more and got to washing the pain in the ass, knowing he couldn't read the language permanently put upon him, but sliding his gaze along it anyway.

"Are you a wizard?"

The man snorted.

"Motherfucker…"

"Are you quite done?"

"I was done before we got the fuck in here."

"Good. Leave me."

"Happy to."

The stranger was turning to pierce Faraji with a gloomy, impatient look when Faraji made a great escape for the doorway. This time, he wasn't returned to the tub. He made a careful exit, then ran to the kitchen, where Heru was sitting beside his food bowl with most perfect, superior posture.

"I'm telling your grandmother," he said. Heru blinked slowly. "Told me to get a black cat, _oh, it shall protect you from e-vul_ , and then what? Huh? Don't even catch mice. What do you do, exactly, Sir?"

The cat meowed. Faraji snorted. His pet came and gave Faraji's wet legs some inspection, tapped his nose to Faraji's calf, and bolted off as if Faraji's being wet was rude and had repulsed him.

"I hate today. Fuck, I hate today."

The shower water was still running. He heard breaks in the patterns of the spray, which meant it, he, whatever, was still in there, likely rinsing off and getting the grease out of his ass. Faraji ran for his bedroom. He stumbled out of his underwear, snatched a backpack out from under his desk, and threw inside it some essentials. He dressed while he did this. Sweatpants, a hoodie that didn't match, some socks that didn't match, all of it uncomfortable against his clammy skin. He tucked a small jar of marijuana into his bag, then reached for Heru. The cat was sticking all of its legs out as it was lowered into the bag, and as this happened, a shadow blocked the bedroom door.

"You thought you were leaving?"

Faraji let his head fall back and groaned terribly. Heru wriggled out of his slave's hands and sat on the bed and flicked his tail.

"I said you'd bathe and feed me. You were spectacularly shitty at the former, and the latter's yet to occur."

"There's turkey bacon in the fridge."

"And then," the stranger continued, "I said I'd be getting from you what's mine. So unpack your fucking cat and get in the kitchen."

Faraji stared with flames in his eyes as the unknown man ate up three apples, half a fresh pineapple, a plum, and drank the last Aloe water in the fridge.

"Are you fucking with me right now? I said turkey bacon. Not the shit I need to be healthy."

"You'll be healthy."

Nonplussed, Faraji threw out his hands in a show of confusion. And the confusion colored his face, namely in the eyebrows.

"I'm here for the sword."

"Go, take it, it's on the couch."

"I've seen that sword and that's not the one."

"Well I've only got that one sword so…"

"I'm here for the sword," the man repeated. "Paûros. Have you heard of it?"

"Pa- - look, no. I haven't."

"For your sake," he said, "you should shut up now. I came for it. I know it's here."

"I just said-"

He stood. His height seemed to suck the light right out of the place. "I'm not leaving without the sword." Then he was gone. After having just said he wasn't leaving, he was gone, though Faraji knew he was very much still in the apartment. He turned his head, searching the visible corners of the kitchen for what he knew he couldn't see.


	3. III

Cancer is uncommon in young adults. Still, it isn't a discriminating evil, and Faraji had, regrettably, fallen victim to it.

The ruling treatment for acute lymphocytic leukemia is chemotherapy. His leukemia was refractory, refusing to respond to the treatment. He'd denied more rigorous methods and doses of drugs in clinical trials, and while he'd wanted to quit, for his mother, he agreed to alternative methods of vitamins, herbs, acupuncture, massage, and special diets. She was pleased with having options. Faraji, however... While it was good to be optimistic - and off the chemo - the ongoing symptoms of his illness were wearing him thin and fatigued him.

A friend of his on a forum had recently passed. The news was just shared this afternoon. Online support communities were most comforting for him, yet, whenever a new death was discovered, it made him become reclusive. His thoughts were often morbid, had been so the past two years, and he was thinking of dying now. He thought about his college friends, some having thinned to memories since being diagnosed, and he thought about the things he wanted to do that were too rough on his body, and how he may never have a daughter, but dying - no longer being here - was at the forefront of his thoughts, rooting in him as had the cancer.

The stranger was quiet. Faraji hadn't seen nor heard him since his disappearance in the kitchen, when all the stress had returned Faraji to a slow and sleepy state. He'd stripped and gotten in bed. The nap was only meant to last an hour, but he'd slept well over four, waking to a note from his mother, a box of lemon candies, and a pre-packed pipe of medical marijuana on his nightstand.

The day felt new again. Heru was snoozing at his feet as was normal, the herb was soothing him, and the bed, though damp with sweat, felt good. He stayed in bed a long while, kept company by Netflix and purring.

Occasionally, Faraji dozed off, and when he woke, he thought of the stranger and what'd happened since morning. If he was honest with himself, he'd much rather figure out the stranger than think of being dead. It gave him something to do with his mind; allowed him to be imaginative. It made sense to say that the stranger wasn't human. Such had been deduced from the beginning, but Faraji needed to be sure. The man had said that he wasn't a demon, so that stripped those concerns, but if not a demon, then what? He certainly wasn't the opposite. Faraji didn't feel that ruling out demons meant that the stranger wasn't a being of darkness. He may not be evil, but to not be dark at all was something Faraji wasn't ready to rule out.

The apartment was losing its light, so that meant the sun was setting. Done with his intermittent naps, Faraji got out of bed, tiredly pulled on loose pajama bottoms, then took some pills for his pain. He turned on all the lights on his way to the kitchen. And when that room was made bright, his breath snagged in his chest.

There were gorgeous, woven white baskets full of vibrant vegetation, and the baskets were on the counters, the rolling island, and the top of the fridge. There were baskets in the seats, few that there were. And in the fridge, when Faraji pulled open the door, there were rows upon rows of odd bottles housing thick-looking, colorful drinks.

Faraji's hands were trembling. He let the door swing shut and returned to his room for his cell phone. He kept checking over his shoulder for the stranger or some shadow, kept looking down the hall to make sure the baskets and their fare were real. They hadn't disappeared, unlike the stranger. But the stranger was still here, he just…

"Ma," Faraji began. He tried to mirror her warm welcome when she answered the phone, but his voice was rough from sleep, soreness, and emotions. "Hey, thank you for the…" He turned, staring at the note on his nightstand. "I got your note. And the treats. Thank you."

She said some words that made his eyes steam up, and he shook his head and paced between bedroom and hallway.

"Yeah," he said, the word trembling as it left him. "I just wanna thank you, ma, for takin' care of me." A pause. "I know you would." He stilled himself in the hallway; put his forehead to the wall and choked out a sob. His body was tight as he fought to control his emotions, but there was nothing to keep the tears inside him. Then, "I'm sorry. Fuck, I hate this."

She asked if he wanted her to come, but he didn't like for her to see him like this. Besides, he didn't think his throat would work the words up to talk to her if she did. Though, knowing his mother, she would only make sure he ate and exercised, which would make him cry more, especially if she washed his hair for him, which had just grown back to this length after coming out from the chemo. This hair was different, a lot finer than before, though still curly and sensitive to humidity. He didn't know which hair he liked best: that from before being sick, or what had grown after, though he knew it'd just fall out again soon. His treatment team had discussed combination chemo at his appointment the day before.

He'd wanted to say the hell with it and stop trying to cure the cancer, only treat its symptoms so the remainder of his life would be comfortable. He doubted it would be completely painless - pain had become such a part of him - but he hated chemotherapy, what it felt like inside him, how it made him wan and just as sick, if not sicker. The hospital beds. The hospital noise. The annoying, sensitive voices of the hospital staff. He despised all of it. He'd much rather die than watch his eyebrows fall off, or not make it in time to the bathroom, or try to eat around mouth sores.

With this anger cooked up in him, Faraji no longer wept with sadness. His eyes were still leaking, but he was, for the most part, recovered. He took his fist across his wet cheeks while clearing his throat. His mother was quiet while he gained his composure.

"Hey…" he began again when he trusted his voice. "Did you bring groceries? I mean, I don't need any, was just wonderin' 'cause you came in."

And she hadn't. But he'd known this. He was just testing to verify his thoughts: that Not A Demon had supplied the food and drinks, perhaps as an apology for eating his fruits earlier, or maybe - the most believable possibility - because he'd planned to stay long and was some sort of vegetarian.

A few loving and reassuring words later, the call with his mother ended, and Faraji took the phone with him back into the kitchen.

The baskets. They were shimmering. Up close, Faraji could see how out of place it all was, from the odd, woven material to the contents it held, and the shimmering, it was only there when his eyes went out of focus, which played with his mind and excited him. The vegetation, however. The vegetation was nothing that was familiar to him, for there were things in the baskets that resembled plants he knew, but even those, among the stranger items, were unidentifiable.

He went from one basket to the next. He was afraid to dig his hands inside, unsure of the skins within. Some looked bumpy and sharp, and he bled easily, so he didn't chance it with those. Others were smooth, with pastel, transparent outer layers. Most of the plants looked edible and delicious, namely the leaves that poured from some of the tops of obvious root vegetables.

He took a basket down from one of the seats and sat in it. In fact, it was the same seat the stranger had occupied just hours prior. Faraji hadn't thought of this before. The knowledge had only come back to him when he felt the presence of the odd male in the seat, a piercing, overwhelming ripple that seemed to wrap about him like smoke. He hurried out of the tall chair, nearly tripping over the basket put to the floor. Before he found his balance, a touch, like one's hand, pushed him upright.

The stranger: he was standing on the other side of the island, and he was still, hadn't reached and touched Faraji in a physical way. His locs looked heavy, for they were so long and so many, but he was standing there with such a look of ease about him that Faraji couldn't imagine they felt worse than a handful of feathers.

Faraji swallowed and blinked, shifting back some. He didn't know what to say or do. How did they begin talking? Was he to thank the man? Of course; that was only polite. But how did he go about doing it?

"You may call me Nathaniel."

All Faraji could do was nod. Nathaniel was looking at him as if into him, and Faraji could feel this. He rubbed his chest as if to mask the cancer. When that did nothing to abate the sensation, the younger male dropped his hand and cleared his throat.

"So… You have a normal name."

"In another time, a different realm, I go by many names. This one's easiest for you."

"And you're not a demon."

Nathaniel said nothing. Faraji sighed. He sat down again, for he was feeling lightheaded with all this, and when he looked at Nathaniel once more, he wondered what time and realm he'd spoken of.

The man was just different, and there was no pinpointing the exact things that made him that way. The sensation of soothing smoke was upon Faraji again. He looked away, wanted to get away, needed to distance himself from Nathaniel.

Nathaniel, as if knowing what troubled Faraji, said, "You're feeling my energy. You'll adjust to it as you're around me, but as you're closer to death, you're more sensitive to it and me."

"So you…" Faraji's brow tugged with concentration. "Are you psychic?"

"At times."

"You can read minds?"

"Yes."

"And this, it's all - you brought it for me?"

"I did."

"Well…" Faraji, with an anxious laugh leaking from his mouth, rubbed his neck. "What is it?"

"Medicine," Nathaniel said with much finality. "Your fruit and drink were poor. This isn't. You'll eat what I bring from now on, and I'll show you how to do it."

Nathaniel not once mentioned the sword. After thinking of it, though, Faraji was afraid that Nathaniel would pluck the word from his mind and return to his previous state of insanity. No such thing happened. It left Faraji in a great state of confusion, for how he'd gone from regarding Nathaniel as a demon to a caring, considerate being, he wasn't certain.


	4. IV

Nathaniel had shown Faraji how to peel, cut, and consume a single basket of produce, and the evidence surrounded them, as it littered the kitchen. There were golden, shell-like membranes, wet stacks of seeds, peelings, pits, curling, silver stems, leaves scattered haphazardly, and the occasional, uneaten food. Faraji's particular favorite was the fruit/nut hybrid, **damsel** , and he finished the last scoop of cream as Nathaniel passed him.

Faraji observed. He was furtive as he stared, not wanting Nathaniel to see him watching. Nathaniel pulled open the fridge, reached in for one of the odd bottles, took his time as he returned to Faraji and, removing the spiral plug, proffered the glass to him.

Faraji looked all around and inside the thing. The glass was cold, but it didn't quite seem like glass, though he didn't know how to describe it. Within, the drink was thick and the shade of eggplants, with a texture Faraji didn't think he could trust. _How's it gonna feel goin' down?_ he thought. He was unsure of this experiment, was fixing to ask for some water instead until Nathaniel put his finger to the bottom of the glass, tipped it to Faraji's lips, and made the liquid pool through the neck toward his mouth.

He took a swallow much larger than he'd intended. His teeth, the insides of his cheeks, and his tongue were coming together to analyze this liquid. It dribbled down into his belly, leaving a cold trail as it went. If nothing else, that was pleasant.

After, when he was sure he'd survived it, Faraji settled the jar on his thigh. He choked its neck, first tight around the thing, all the while swallowing at the taste in his mouth and working it out inside him.

The texture wasn't bad. The taste, either. It was a juicy, milk-like liquid, full of life just as the produce had been. And in his body, where he couldn't see but felt and knew, where his bones ached and his blood seemed to weigh the same as gold, there was a languid healing taking place, which he couldn't describe nor dared to.

Nathaniel was just standing there, looking pleased with himself. He was looking proud, Faraji determined. But where'd this stuff all come from? _"In another time, a different realm,"_ Nathaniel had said, _"I go by many names. This one's easiest for you."_ Faraji was replaying the stranger's words in the traffic of his mind. When he looked to Nathaniel again, he was faced with a set of suspicious eyes and one cocked-up brow.

Faraji snorted up a noise. "What?"

"You."

"Well what the fuck of me, then?"

"You've no idea the Gravity of the food."

Faraji repeated it - "the Gravity" - and his face screwed up. Nathaniel loosed an amused, feral sound, the noise not a laugh nor a scoff. Then, with a rugged grace Faraji hadn't before seen, Nathaniel organized what was left of the baskets, arranging them on the counter as one would display gifts of flowers. When he was done, the strange man disappeared into the bathroom.

Faraji was sitting there trying to sort it. Nathaniel wasn't of this time, or this anything. It poured into Faraji a sudden, unwelcomed anxiety, since he'd just eaten from this man, and he didn't know what he'd put in his body, though it'd all tasted safe - and good - and he, too, was good, feeling like he'd felt when the chemo was at last out of him.

There were sounds of water and brisk washing, the scent of the delicious-looking soap - and Faraji questioned how he could smell it from this distance - then a penetrating silence which Nathaniel didn't emerge from. Faraji was too tired to investigate the happenings of the bathroom. He was fed. He was satisfied. The moon was dripping in through his windows, a lullaby of black and light.

Into his bed he got, with Heru beating at his heels. The cat was already monstrous without Nathaniel's sudden presence, however now, with the towering mystery filling up their space, Faraji's pet was, in a wild way, affected.

Dreams of a floating kingdom filled Faraji's sleep, where he saw a fox with antlers sprouting blossoms, and pastel ponds of milky water, and other ponds of prophecies, and stones like sugar, looking to crumble at the touch and be eaten, and the angel aura quartz strung on unicorn mane to be draped along leaves, across mirrors, and the waters, and Faraji also saw the hexed woods, the magick seeming to coat things like pollen, and there was so much kingdom, most of it Gravity and the rest of it Mischief.

The sleep was lucid and faerie, like someone had plucked him up and dropped him into his own skull to live the things of his dreams. So much food, it all divine. So much comfort in the weather, it making him lazy and erect. The curses, he stayed away from, for they weren't quite inviting, though some mixed in with the beauty, lovely and wicked it was. But the beauty - the apparent clusters of diamonds littering everywhere with all the rest of it - it was so opposite Nathaniel - and then it wasn't - yet Faraji, without knowing how he knew any of this, knew Nathaniel lived here.

When Faraji woke, it was because there was a tugging at the opposite end of his bed. Heru was caught in the blankets; his usual thing when trying to get under the covers. Faraji scowled through a yawn. All of his being hadn't pulled together again, some of it still in the kingdom, where he'd much rather be instead of his bed. The bed felt dry in comparison to the kingdom's earth, the grass, the sleeping swings strung up in the woods. He hadn't felt all of it, needn't feel it to know the disparity. There was a superior comfort where he'd been. His eyes were wet at the loss of it.

How did Faraji know what it all meant, though? How did he know that this was all Nathaniel, from the light to the dark of the kingdom? The suns and moons had orbited the kingdom as if the kingdom itself were celestial, and maybe it was. But the dream drained from Faraji entirely. Nothing was left to him but the taste of what he'd eaten before slumber.

Another tug to the sheets. Faraji grumbled a sound to acknowledge Heru, rolled over, testing both his body and his fatigue, and jerked back his quilt to see what the cat had done.

A black face emerged. There was a mouth on it and nothing else. The head was misshapen, and the entire thing moved blindly, still coming toward Faraji, however, with its hands that were pointed. Faraji felt his melanated face drain of blood. He forced himself from the bed, crashing to the floor, seeing beneath the bed the rest of the thing's body: a smoking, black pair of jointed legs.

Another one emerged. Then a third, from the far right corner of the ceiling. It pulled itself out from it, dragged its crooked body with its hands - if they could be called such - and was born from the corner like a calf slipping from mother. To the floor it went, landing with a hover before its feet met it. Then the three were coming toward Faraji, and they were quick.

Faraji felt that his body was hollow inside, and his arms and legs and middle were full of blood like a pail, and that the pail was too tight, or the blood was too much, and he'd explode. His pulse knocked through him so hard he thought he was dancing. And he danced his way to the bedroom door to snatch it shut between them.

A wet shriek, then the hands, the head of one of them, coming through the door as would a spirit. Faraji did yell this time. The terror was making him slow, like this, too, were a dream, and he dragged himself across the hallway floor and tried to get up to his feet.

Just as he was doing it - one foot, now just the other left - one of the pointed hands, he assumed, wrapped his ankle and snatched him backward. He knocked his chin on the floor and bit his tongue. Blood gushed behind his teeth. He was regretting forgetting the sword. Where the demon - he was certain of this, this time - gripped him, his skin was both freezing and on fire. It was an odd twist of pain, frost, and flames, one that certainly touched him where there was marrow, all of it crippling Faraji, distracting him from the search of a weapon and drawing his attention to the problem.

Then, after being unseen since the kitchen, Nathaniel came into the space. He stood over Faraji. His feet were at both sides of Faraji's body, the protective gesture a gorgeous sight, though doing nothing for what Faraji endured at his foot. Then, with wicked words and sights Faraji could hardly see, nor understand, Nathaniel did away with the demons by consuming them.

At least…

It was what Faraji though he saw.

The entities were no more, having been twisted up and sucked into Nathaniel's mouth - or his eyes, or _something_ \- and made gone. A black spiral of light was all that was left of the three, though that went away also, splashing to the floor, dissolving slow.

Faraji spit out his blood.

"Just a **bite** ," Nathaniel said, having crouched in some shimmer of time Faraji hadn't seen, his hands where the thing had touched him, his body looking odd like the demons' had, what with how he was bent over and his hair was hanging, concealing him.

 _"A_ _ **bite**_ _"!_ Faraji screamed in his mind. _But with what teeth?!_ Then Nathaniel, as if inside the very water of Faraji's body, as if part of him, said, "They bite in other ways. I'll have to heal this now." A disgusted look, from what Faraji could see. After, "You should've given me the sword."

"What _fucking_ sword?"

"They'll be back here for it. For you. You've no idea what you're hiding in here."


	5. V

Faraji knew he was on the smaller side, and that Nathaniel was large in his height, and even that while Nathaniel was lean, his figure was pronounced with muscle, but still, with the way Nathaniel got Faraji to the couch as if Faraji were weightless, Faraji thought it unnatural and wished to question it. He couldn't. Not with the **bite** chewing its way up his leg, smearing it into his knee. And how silly it'd be, anyway, to question that which was evident, for from their first encounter to now, Nathaniel had made plain he was magick.

Faraji grimaced when the three demons slithered back into his brain. He couldn't blink them away from him, and the darkness, whenever he did blink and however fleeting, was full of the monsters. Sometimes, when his eyes shut and opened, he saw them in Nathaniel. Sometimes, he thought one of them had taken Nathaniel's place, and so while Nathaniel was touching him, an erratic flinch would interrupt. It, too, was the pain that cause him movement. Nathaniel's hands followed the pain.

"So sensitive."

Offended Faraji shot up on his forearms. He was greeted by a fluid look of playfulness, which washed through Nathaniel as the hurt washed through Faraji's leg.

"It's like you've never been touched," Nathaniel tacked on just to fuck with Faraji, Faraji knew, and Nathaniel loosed a short, almost-laugh at the way Faraji cursed at him. "Has no one touched you?" And there was a moment, languid and suggestive, which passed between them.

Faraji was aware of the undertones of the words. It was enough that they were there, but what was also present was the look Nathaniel was giving him. Faraji wondered how it were possible that he'd so recently thought this man to be evil. Nathaniel was beautifully made, and that beauty, no matter sexual orientation, was an unavoidable force. Still, beauty didn't exist solely for that which was good. There was splendid flora and fauna full of poison and teeth. Nathaniel, Faraji felt, was kin to them.

"Be soft," Nathaniel said. Faraji's eyes shot again to Nathaniel's, and they weren't ice-blue, not the near-white irises he'd had on him when they met. These eyes were warm, full of gold and amber and honey, eyes Faraji felt were the truest parts of Nathaniel. Then Faraji recalled the words - "Be soft" - and he broke away from those eyes to look at his leg - and then the hands on his leg - and felt the tension in the limb that he'd created. _"Soft,"_ Faraji thought. He swallowed. With tremendous effort, he relaxed.

A satisfied sound rumbled through the man opposite him. The vibrations of it filled Faraji, poured into him a warmth he'd only felt with women. Pleasure, sweet and tingling, climbed through his groin to his throat. He had to stop it: "That's enough." Nathaniel ended the caress.

Wincing, Faraji drew up one leg, then the other, the latter being the **bitten** one, it not totally healed. He touched around the marks the demon left. A dull bloom of pain responded.

"You don't want it mended?"

Faraji scowled and got up from the couch. He didn't want to share it with Nathaniel, especially now, with the man quite comfortably arranged on the opposite end of the seat, yet taking up more than half of it. "I think it's done," he said, the scowl twisting his voice.

"You know it's not done."

A scoff.

"You'll be wanting to have it done, though," Nathaniel started, and he said more, but Faraji was already in the next room, swinging the door shut between them.

He was shaking. Faraji had felt many careful hands on him, and even loving hands, but the hands that'd just been on him were…

"You'll die in there," Nathaniel said on the other side of the door. Faraji kicked it. He kicked it carefully, though. When Nathaniel said no more, Faraji sat against the adjacent wall to inspect his **bitten** leg.

No matter the deep, rich tone of his skin, the **bite** was visible, and growing all the more visible with time. It was like Nathaniel hadn't just put his hands on him and the magick - or whatever it'd been - hadn't wiped most of the pain away. Nathaniel shifted behind the door. Faraji imagined how he looked: all towering, ripped body and hair.

"Faraji," Nathaniel soothed.

"Will you just fucking stop?"

A light laugh.

"Fuck, just - get out my goddamn apartment!"

And he was gone. Faraji knew he was gone, for whatever the energy was that the wicked creature carried with him was gone, and the emptiness was thick, and the silence in his apartment was equally dense. So now he was alone in a space just riddled with demons, his only defense a cat, his not-so-special sword, and food perhaps from the dreamed-of floating kingdom.

The pain was glowing and great, as the **bite** was spreading again, becoming again, doing to Faraji's leg what he imagined acid could do to one's leg, or at least the sensation of it. He was sick with turmoil. His sweats were unlike sweats caused by the cancer, so much that he felt he soaked in it. Daylight came and went. Heru was unfed. And while all this happened, and Faraji vacillated between life and death, he was certain, Nathaniel was nowhere to be found, and Nathaniel was all he wanted.


End file.
